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Cycle Recap: Yale-Bound!
SuperMario929
Alum Member
I’m incredibly grateful to the 7Sage community for helping me get to his point—I’m absolutely thrilled to be attending my dream school. This is a truly wonderful community dedicated to helping each other master what is an intimidating, but surmountable, obstacle. Thank you JY and everyone else for creating such an amazing resource.
I had a lot of trouble with the LSAT. In 2015, I took the test once, cancelled after a bubbling error, and got a 166 on my second attempt. With that score, I got into a number of mid-range T14s, but could never have gotten into a HYS (my uGPA was a 3.91, so I was a splitter). I really wanted to go to HYS so I could have an easier door to legal academia, and I decided to go to graduate school instead for a doctorate (still not finished) with the intention of re-applying to law school eventually.
I half-assed my way through two more takes in the early days of grad school without really studying for the exam: I figured it would just “click” eventually. I got mid-160s both times, and I thought I had doomed myself out of a place like Yale with that number of takes.
In 2019, I finally dedicated myself to making my way through the entire Ultimate+ curriculum and the results showed: I went from the low 160s (my diagnostic after so long away from the test) to a 175 on the July 2019 LSAT. I studied every day for about three and a half months using 7Sage, and drilling everything I would get wrong. I felt incredibly comfortable on test day, because 7Sage had taught me everything I could possibly see on the test. There are only so many forms of questions they can ask, and if you practice all of them enough you will have the time needed to get through the 2-3 curveballs they will throw at you.
There are a lot of big-picture lessons that I took away from my journey to a higher LSAT. JY has already said them numerous times, but it always helps to enumerate them again:
- Every question has one CLEARLY correct answer and four ABSOLUTELY WRONG answers. I know we all want to be lawyers, and arguing different positions is a default for many of us. But that’s not what the LSAT is testing. Instead, it’s looking to see if you can identify factual patterns in questions. Once I came to accept this lesson, eliminating marginally-wrong answers became much easier for me.
- Skipping questions is the best thing you can do on the test. The LSAT is all about time. I know that skipping questions is always emphasized as a strategy, but mentally I just couldn’t do it. For me, skipping a question represented a failure and a lost point. But of course, that point is worth a lot less than the five points I risked by not finishing the final page in time. I had to start forcing myself to start skipping questions. I set out by saying that I would skip at least five questions per LR section. The amount of time I had in the sections skyrocketed when I did this. It gave me confidence to start routinely skipping questions, and on the actual test day I finished all the sections with time to spare. That had never happened to me before.
- Foolproof the low-hanging fruit. My biggest weaknesses ended up being my strengths: logic games, and must be true/SA/NA questions. I drilled NA/SA questions every day, until I could run through them in about a third of the time I had before. I also just kept running through the logic games of the first 16 tests, until I could do each one within a few minutes. It helped my LG section a ton—I would usually finish with about 5-10 minutes of extra time, which was a) a comforting buffer in case something went horrendously wrong, and b) it gave me time to meditate and breathe. Get comfortable with the low-hanging fruit and you will have more time for the other questions.
- Gaining basic knowledge of subjects is helpful. I really struggled with the science RC sections. There were words in there that just looked like gobbledygook. I started reading as many ScienceNews.org articles as I could, and I got more comfortable. I can’t recommend ScienceNews enough for LSAT prep. The articles are almost always the exact length of a section, they almost always bring in an outside source to comment on the piece, and they are just complicated enough to serve as a good proxy for the exam. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if LSAC took passages from ScienceNews. Get comfortable with reading subjects you don’t entirely understand. Unrelatedly, I also found that understanding statistics, and in particular having a strong background in causal inference, was incredibly helpful for moving through the flaw questions in LR. If you are struggling there, I highly recommend taking a day to watch some videos on causation.
- Mistakes are your ticket to a 180. I can’t stress this enough: mistakes on tests are the most valuable things you can look for. You need to document when you’ve missed a question, and you need to be using the “flag” option on 7Sage to mark when you struggled with a question (in case you get it right and forget it was difficult). I used to get mad at myself whenever I missed a question, and rather than focus on correcting the situation, I would chastise myself for being “an idiot.” Mistakes tell you where you need to focus, and where you can improve your score. Take lots of tests, get a statistically relevant sample size, and refocus your studies on those areas. I found it to be difficult to do this, because I inherently hated studying the questions I struggled to understand, but it’s what got me to a high score.
I know that these points might seem obvious, but I can’t emphasize their importance enough. I really struggled to grasp them, but doing so served me well.
The LSAT is hard. Actually, it's really hard. But there is a light at the tunnel, and I hope anyone who is struggling with the test can take some solace in that it eventually does work out. I had one cancelled test and three mid-level scores for a top 3 school before I finally hit that 175. My path wasn’t ideal (don’t take the LSAT 5 times—I think I got lucky here), but it does show that you should keep trying if you are confident you can do better. I knew I could, even when the results strongly suggested otherwise, and I am glad I kept at it until it eventually clicked. Yes, I’m going to law school five years after I planned it, but I would have made this trade when I graduated college, and I am glad it has worked out fairly well in the end. Good luck, and please message me if I can be of help.
Comments
Congratulations!! Best wishes
Congratulations! This was an amazing post, and I'm so appreciative that you wrote it. We are absolutely rooting for you!
Thank you for sharing!!
This is so inspiring!!
Congrats!
Thank you so much for sharing your journey, future law prof/researcher!
Wow, all that hard work paid off. Huge congratulations, and good luck in the fall!
Sounds like you're going to do well at Yale. Great work!
So happy for you! Congratulations and thank you for taking the time to update us!
Thanks everyone! Still doesn't feel real. Happy to answer any questions people might have (most have been DMing me but I can also answer questions here so others might benefit if you want--happy with either option).
Congratulations!! Thanks so much for sharing your tips!
Congratulations! Thank you for sharing. Once you identified your weaknesses, how long did it take you to improve on them? And how? Did you go back to Core Curriculum / revisit general background on those question stems, rewatch JY work through examples on video, or just do & review as many of those questions as possible in Problem Sets?
It honestly depended on the question type. It took me forever to get better at sufficient and necessary assumptions. I know for most people they are low-hanging fruit, but for me I always had a rough time with them.
Thanks for the well wishes. I would save CC drill sections (if those are still in the course? I know some changes have happened since I took the test in 2019) and return to them when I needed to review a section. I would also drill flash cards in the AM to go over both the thought process of how to approach a question type, and whatever relevant information was related to that question (e.g. the different groupings for conditional logic, the valid and invalid argument forms, et cetera). I would watch a few of the JY videos again, but I mostly would just spend 30-60 minutes working on something that I was either flagging as being difficult (or just getting wrong), or that was taking too much time on the test.
I can't emphasize how important it is to look at how long a question type typically takes you. It's such a helpful resource for improving on the test.
Good luck and let me know if I can answer any other questions!
how many total official takes and at which specific times? does someone taking 6-7 times affect result at HYS?
Dang, I would kill for that GPA and LSAT! Congrats on your huge accomplishment!!!
When did you get admitted? Are you starting the 20-21 L1 class or 21-22. I guess I am just perplexed by the timing of your announcement. When was your 175 LSAT score, was it one of the flex administrations?
This was really motivational to read. I needed this.
I took five official takes. late 2014 (cancel), early 2015, then twice in 2016-2017 (don't remember the exact dates to be honest), and then the July 2019 exam was when I hit the 175.
Honestly, I think five takes affects results at HYS. It's always better to have few takes. So my primary advice would be: don't take it unless you are ready, and don't make the mistakes I did. That being said, if you already have made the "mistake" of taking it that many times, and your score still isn't what you want, having a significantly higher score (i.e. more than 4 points so that its outside the margin of error) with an extra take is probably worth it.
I would say don't take the test unless you are consistently scoring around the number you want, since luck essentially plays no part in a 100 question test. I would certainly not go above three or four takes, and after five you're reaching really dangerous territory. Again, it's a balancing act of figuring out what is most beneficial for you. If you want to go to HYS and are getting mid-160s, it's going to be tough. They would probably prefer a 170+ with an extra take. Every situation is different though!
I also believe the rules are changing eventually to cap how many takes you can do (though COVID suspended the change? I sorta stopped following the LSAT as closely when I got my score a year ago). Good luck and let me know if I can be of help!
I am starting 20-21, so in three weeks. I was a waitlist admit so I am a bit late to the party on the whole knowing where I am going for school part. I got my 175 in July 2019, so a while back. I didn't apply until late in the cycle though because I had some publications pending that I wanted finalized before I sent my app in. I think, on balance, an earlier app with an LOCI would have been the better route (though that's less relevant for Yale is my impression).
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Great pointers! Congratulations and best of luck in your career.
very inspiring! thank you for sharing.
congratulation！
Thanks so much for this inspiring post! My story is actually quite similar so good to know not alone in it. 3 questions:
1. How many hours a day did you study during those 3.5 months?
2. How many full PTs did you do before taking the final test?
3. When you say you applied late in the cycle, when exactly is “late”?
Thanks so much again and huge congrats!
Thank you so much for sharing your study experience with us! I am proud of you! Your post is really helpful and very encouraging! Thank you again!
As someone with a lot of takes considering retake, how many takes did you finally have and scores in them? What were you scores in individual sections of Jul 2019 take? Was it CBT?
thanks for sharing! this is incredible!
Congrats! Loved your story!
good!
Congrats! And thank you for sharing your hard-won wisdom. I'm going to immediately start skipping 3-4 questions on LR and see what happens. Put your advice to concrete use!
Hello! Thank you for the advice! I wanted to ask how many times a day you studied?
Sorry for not replying sooner! I don't check 7Sage as often as I would like (sadly).
I ended up doing five takes. Cancel (2014), 166 (early 2015), low160s (20...16?), 166 (2017? Hard to remember---which shows how little I prepared), and then 175 in Jul 2019.
Unfortunately, the test was undisclosed, so I have no idea how I did on each section. It actually bothers me--I don't want to sound overconfident, but I honestly walked out that day feeling super confident, and only had one LR question I felt kinda iffy on. I finished LG with about 10 minutes to go, caught the ~3 curveballs they threw in there, and felt good about the section, so I don't think I missed any there. RC had traditionally been my weakest section, so my guess is I maybe missed something there?
I'm not sure what CBT means, but I am happy to answer that if you clarify! Hope studying is going well and good luck--I know it's a hard situation a year into the pandemic, but by even studying a bit you're doing a great job!
Sorry for the delayed reply! Early on, I would just spend as much time as I could going through the 7Sage curriculum. I would shoot to get 8-10 hours in a day I think, though a lot of that had breaks and I would play solitaire (with real cards--phones distract you) as I listened to JY talk through lessons--especially if it was stuff I had heard before. Doing the extra activity was actually super helpful for me to remain focused, because it was low-key enough to keep me focused on the lectures, but also engaging enough to not make me bored and zone out.
Later on--essentially, when I started taking practice tests most days of the week--I developed more of a routine. I would wake up early and drive my girlfriend to work while she quizzed me on LSAT flashcards (what groups logical indicators belong in, logical fallacies, argument types, some LG tips... I just used the "Studies" app to make a flashcard whenever JY mentioned something). I would then go back to sleep for a few hours. I am NOT a morning person, so I would start my day off for real walking my puppy and getting coffee in the late morning, then doing either LG foolproofing or watching the curriculum/doing drills for maybe an hour or two. I would then go to my office (grad school at the time... but sorta on the way out by that point and therefore focusing almost entirely on the LSAT), warm up for maybe 15 minutes, and then take a full exam (four sections--I know others say to do five but honestly I would rather save the sections. On test day, you'll have the adrenaline to get through it). I would then do a blind review for LR and head back home, where I would redo the games real quick. I would then take care of other work until my girlfriend would come home, at which point I would make dinner while she read the RC sections to me out loud and I did the questions verbally (also a huge help--and she would then tell me if I had changed an answer. OH--and I had to justify my reasoning to her for every answer, which was a HUGE way for me to improve). Then we would eat, and then I would hit submit on my blind review, go over the answers (maybe "obsess" over the answers is the correct term), and then rinse/repeat the next day.
That was a pretty intensive amount of time to spend every day, and that certainly won't work for everyone--I was super privileged to be in a position with grad school where that was feasible for me. But maybe it can serve as a bit of a model to think of ways to leverage your lifestyle into a study habit.
Hope that helps!
can you talk more about what drilling looked like for you?
Sure! I should note that, at the time, most of my LR drilling was based on the drill packages JY had put together in the ultimate+ course. I'm not sure if that's still there--I think there was some rumor of that all changing with the digital version--but if it's gone, I think you can just use question types from the earlier tests to drill LR.
The most drilling I did was for LG, simply because I knew it was "low hanging fruit" and that, if I mastered LG to the point where I would finish with a lot of time to spare, I would be able to relax a bit during the exam. I did a variation on the fool-proof method 7Sage recommends (https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/). I printed out a bunch of answer sheets, and just did the LG from PT 1-16 over and over and over again, timing it and keeping a spread sheet of my times. It got to the point where I could do the games in about ~4 minutes each, so it was pretty quick to run through all the tests. I know that it sounds like that wouldn't be very helpful, but I found it to be extremely useful. There are only so many variations of logic games questions they can throw at you, and only a handful of ways that they can trick you on the exam. Doing these 16 repeatedly is a really good way to learn the different game types.
I detailed my RC "drilling" in earlier comments, but basically I learned RC while doing PTs. In retrospect, I think there are better ways to practice. One of them is reading media that are of a similar length. In particular, I recommend ScienceNews. They use the EXACT same format as the LSAT in their writeups (I wouldn't be surprised if LSAC took their writeups actually), so that provides good practice for the science sections.
Let me know if I can provide any additional information or clarity, and good luck!
Congratulations on getting to Yale. Fantastic job! Did you visit Yale before accepting or was it always your goal to get there? And if you visited, what was your trip like?
I wanted to ask you about drilling. I've been drilling games for a few years now, I have the Cambridge LG Bundle (PT 21-40), and I've mastered most of the easy and mid level games. The harder games are still a struggle, I'm not totally lost because I usually go - 2; -1; or - 0, but my timing is awful (11 - 17 mins). I've followed JY's advice and redone all the games as much as possible (I've done some games 20 times), but my concern is that I'm not learning how to attack LG correctly. What I mean by that is that I'm not learning how to make inferences and hypotheticals quickly enough. I'm not able to identify what boards/diagrams to use. Proof of this is that even though I mastered the easy games in PT21 - 40, when I encounter a new game elsewhere, I struggle with timing and accuracy on even easy games. Any advice on this? I'm convinced that the only reason I mastered the easy to mid level games in the Cambridge bundle is because I'm familiar with them and internally memorized how to approach them.
I'm convinced that I'm going to need a tutor because I just don't know what else to do. I've already done PT21- 40 and I would like to save the other PTs for prep. Any help would be really appreciated.
Congrats again!
Thanks for the kind words. I didn't visit the law school itself because I didn't want to jinx anything, but I had moved to New Haven a year prior so my girlfriend could go to med school up here. So I felt really fortunate to get in since that ended up saving me a (would be, but for the pandemic) long commute to NYC.
I totally feel you on the difficulties with having done the PTs so many times and knowing them super well. I took the LSAT a few times, and by the end I was struggling to separate out my prior knowledge from my attempts to learn new strategies. I would recommend 1) using PTs 1-21 if you haven't already. They are actually a really great subset of PTs to practice LG with, since they have a lot of curve ball games that are increasingly common on the LSAT. 2) I would highly recommend watching people like JY (or the guy from LSAT Hacks -- Gramme?) complete the games so you can see how they approach it. I know it seems like a grind, but it really is basically rote memorization and just learning to apply the patterns to the games. There are only so many different forms of games they can throw at you. Being in the -2 to -0 range is pretty good though, so I think you're on the right track. Even after I felt I had really "mastered" the games section, I would still sometimes slip up a bit. Is the 11-17 minutes timing per game, or for the whole section?
I'll also throw out there that, while I really wouldn't encourage using something like PowerScore to practice LR or RC, the LGs they make up aren't horrible. (Apologies to PowerScore if they don't invent their own questions--I'm pretty sure they do though?). LG is, again, really just five or six different formulas that they throw out there, so it's pretty easy for PowerScore and other companies to invent their own. I'm sure there are other similar services out there that make up LG sections.
I have two more bits of LG advice. The first is to focus on game setup. That can be the difference between a 2 minute game and a 5 minute game. That just comes from drilling I think. The second is that you should 100% skip a game question that's a time sink. The classic example for me is the "ok, we are dropping X rule and adding Y rule." That's asking you to do a full game setup again. That's a huge time sink. Skip it, go on to the other games, and then come back to it at the end.
I hope that helps. If I can provide any additional information please let me know!
@SuperMario929
I don't think the drilling packages are there. Do you basically mean looking at what type of question you are weak on and doing that question in a drill to just get better at it specifically?
@SuperMario929 -- really glad you shared this. You deserve all the karma that exists for this post. Best of luck at Yale & beyond!
Congratulations and thank you for the words of wisdom! Best of luck at Yale!
Oh that's too bad! I know they reformed the system when LSAC changed the copyright rules for LSAT materials.
Basically, I would do about 40 or so questions of a question type whenever I finished all the lessons on that type of question in the course. So if the course section was about sufficient assumptions, I would do 40 of those questions. I only returned to those drills once I had taken a sufficient number of PTs, and therefore could identify what question types I had the most trouble with (strangely--since it's considered the "easiest"--I was really bad with must be true question types!). Hope that helps and good luck!
@SuperMario929 congratulations on getting into your dream school! What would be your greatest piece of advice that got you our of your score plateau in the mid 160's? I find that 9 out of 10 times I am narrowing it down to 2 and just picking the wrong one. Upon review, it seems painfully obvious. Did you have a similar experience? If so, how did you structure your review to overcome it?
Great question, and good luck with the test!
I think the best advice I can give for your situation (which also lead to a huge score bump for me) was just moving on from a question if I didn't immediately foresee/eliminate what the correct/incorrect answers would be. Normally, I would be able to immediately predict what I was looking for, and find it. Remember: there are no "kinda right" and "kinda wrong" answers on the LSAT. There are four VERY wrong answers and one VERY correct answer. If it doesn't jump out right away, don't waste your time. Move on, and come back when you're done with the other questions.
I know it feels difficult to do this ("but I just invested so much time in processing the question in my head!") but you'll save so much time using this skipping strategy. Don't buy into the sunk cost fallacy. The time you spend panicking about not knowing the correct choice is time that you can better spend on the next question. The marginal value of those additional sections is huge. I also employ the same strategy when I simply don't understand the question stimulus, or when my brain simply wasn't working.
I think I skipped about 5-8 questions per LR section (and even one or two RC/LG questions per section). Doing so helped me jump from scrambling to finish each section to comfortably seeing each section completed with a minute or two or either relax or look over a question I was really unsure about.
Let me know if you want to talk specifics about how to approach this issue, but for me this was the best way that I found to just improve all around, especially in the mid- or high-160s.
@SuperMario929 thank you for your post and further insight. I appreciate your insight into your skipping strategy. Just one more follow-up question. How did you apply my initial question, narrowing it down to two and picking the wrong one, into your review process? Is it just exposure that unlocks patterns in your mind to recognize it the next time they're testing on a specific idea?
I will definitely be experimenting with your suggestion on a better skipping strategy, so thank you.
When you said "skipping questions," did you mean intentionally skipping those questions never to return to them OR skipping with the intention of coming back to them during the test? Thanks so much for sharing your story!
@SuperMario929 would you be open to tutoring me for RC? I am getting about 2-3 wrong on each PT, but my strategy is all over the place. Thank you so much!